How the left is profiting from Trump hate

Ben &amp; Jerry's is using the ice cream to take a stance against the Trump administration.
(Ben & Jerry's via AP)

Raging against President Trump for profit is no longer just for the media. Now everybody’s getting in on the act. Resist! By buying our ice cream. Fight oppression! With this lovely coffee mug. Show your disdain! With this 25th Amendment shower curtain. No wonder the economy’s booming. The election of Donald Trump may have given a big boost to the stock market last year, but this year he’s been an absolute godsend for the shlock market.

Ben & Jerry’s, that legendary social-justice dessert created by two New Yorkers who fled to the second-whitest state in America and which is now owned by the multibillion-dollar conglomerate Unilever, is bravely leading the march against Trumpism via its diversity-drenched Pecan Resist flavor, “a movement to lick injustice and champion those fighting to create a more just and equitable nation for us all.” It’s the sweet treat that reminds us that progressivism is nutty: chocolate ice cream with pecans, walnuts, fudge-covered almonds and white and dark fudge chunks. A quarter of a container heaves with 300 calories. Be Antifa, not antifat. Say “I hate Trump” with love handles! Keep in mind that Ben & Jerry’s, which received millions of dollars’ worth of fawning free publicity linked to this stunt, is donating a whole $100,000 to liberal causes linked to the new flavor. B&J sell half a billion dollars’ worth of ice cream each year.

Over at Lingua Franca, you can demonstrate how Trump has destroyed your well-being by spending $380 on a cashmere sweater that reads, “I miss Barack” or “beat the system.” Honey, if the system is enabling you to blow $380 swathing yourself in cashmere, it’s working fine for you. Monogram Studio invites you to buy an amazingly ugly “Resist persist insist” T-shirt. It’s $65. You’ll look resistible in it.

All of this consumerist activism seems like a sad parody of Sixties passion, when war with the establishment meant sit-ins and riots and the Weather Underground. Today you fight the power while taking a shower: the Web site Society 6 is hawking a $70 shower curtain reading, in huge letters, “SUPPORT 25TH AMENDMENT.” That’s the one that says a president can be removed if he is unable to discharge his duties. Unfortunately for the shower-curtain resistance, the 25th Amendment does not say a president can be removed from office if he proves far too able to discharge his duties in a way liberals don’t like. The same site offers coffee mugs reading, in sad little letters, “I hate when I wake up and Donald Trump is still president.”

A site called “Teepublic” is selling toddler T-shirts with a clenched fist and the legend “Rise up.” A description on the Web site says, “Rebel kids T-shirt. Time to unite and fight the power.” Can you really fight the power when you wear a diaper and you’re so immature that your only means of communication is bawling? I dunno, maybe ask Jim Acosta. The T-shirt runs $18, or approximately a dollar for every day your kid will wear it before he outgrows it, but throwing your money away on a gimmick will surely send DJT a message. Telepathically, maybe.

If you prefer your tantrums in book form, there are plenty of those, too: “Good and Mad” by Rebecca Traister, “Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger” by Soraya Chemaly and “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower” by Brittney Cooper.

Not all of the rage is happening between the ears, though. A lot of it is being felt farther south. At CafePress you can buy a thong reading “Anti-Trump AF.” And at Etsy, they’re selling hipster panties reading, “Dump Trump.” Ad copy reads, “Just imagine you ate too many beans and you need to let out some gas. Well, you will be happy to do it in these panties.” Keep dreaming, #resist fans. Like all the other Trump-hating kitsch, the panty protest amounts to so much breaking wind in a tornado.